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(Washington) Donald Trump announced Thursday that he would repeal a text serving as the basis for the fight against greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, a major turnaround opposed by scientists and environmental defenders.
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This decision, announced with fanfare from the White House, immediately ends emissions standards for vehicles and paves the way for the cancellation of other environmental regulations, particularly regarding discharges from power plants.
This “will save American consumers trillions of dollars” by lowering the cost of cars, assured the American president, a declared climate skeptic.
This revocation, which will most likely be challenged in court, constitutes “the greatest attack in the history of the United States against federal efforts to fight the climate crisis”, Manish Bapna, president of the American environmental organization NRDC, told AFP shortly before the announcement.
By attacking the keystone of climate regulations, the Trump administration is in fact dealing a significant blow to climate action in the country, the largest historical contributor to planet-warming emissions.
Americans will be “less safe” and “less healthy” with Donald Trump’s decision, Barack Obama denounced Thursday.
“Without it, we will be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change – all so that the fossil fuel industry can make even more money,” the former Democratic president denounced on X.
Scientific dismay
Adopted in 2009 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the presidency of Democrat Barack Obama, the text in question stipulated that six greenhouse gases were dangerous for public health and therefore fell within the scope of pollutants regulated by the federal agency.
This decision legally opened the way to numerous federal regulations aimed at limiting the release of these gases warming the atmosphere (CO2methane, etc.), starting with emissions from trucks and cars.
Its dismissal by this same federal agency, now headed by a close friend of Donald Trump, was decried Thursday by the Democratic opposition.
Criticizing his “shameful abdication”, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate Chuck Schumer and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, very active on climate issues, accused in a press release the government of “disregarding scientific facts” in order to serve the interests of “major political donors” including oil groups.
A great defender of oil and coal, Donald Trump has since his return to power initiated a complete reversal in terms of climate, once again taking the world’s leading power out of the Paris Climate Agreement and unraveling numerous environmental standards.
Legal battle
Announced in July, its desire to repeal this 2009 text had aroused the ire of many scientists and environmental associations, who denounce a decision contrary to science and the public interest.
The American government, for its part, assured that greenhouse gases should not be treated as pollutants in the traditional sense of the term, because their effects on human health are indirect and global, rather than local, and greatly minimized the role of human activities in climate change.
These arguments should be supported in the text establishing this revocation and will be closely scrutinized by environmental organizations, which intend to challenge them in court.
The case, which should lead to a long legal battle, could go all the way to the Supreme Court.
If the latter, predominantly conservative, has shown itself to be open in recent years to reversals of jurisprudence, the plaintiffs will note that it is one of its own decisions in 2007 which is at the origin of this famous decision.
This turnaround comes as the year 2025 has been confirmed by climatologists as the third hottest ever recorded on Earth, and as the effects of climate change are being felt across the United States and the rest of the world.
